Fret Placement on Chromatic Dulcimer?

NateBuildsToys
04/19/20 11:28:32AM
@nate

Hello all! It has been tons of fun building and learning to play diatonic dulcimers, but part of me feels that it would be useful to try to learn to play chromatic as well, to better be able to jam with others! However, I have no formal knowledge on how to build dulcimers whatsoever. In fact, before I met y'all and started reading around this site, I was building them exclusively by trial and error! Thank the lord I have access to this incredible pool of knowledgeable and friendly players and luthiers :) Basically I am wondering if I should use a fret calculator for an acoustic guitar to find the placement for the extra frets. I have a very shaky understanding of bridge placement and string height and usually rely on a tuner for the former and a nickel and dime for the latter, so I dont really know if the fact that my dulcimers are seated so low indicates that those frets would be out of place. Is it the case that the fret placement is totally the same between a guitar and dulcimer, and the difference is in the string height and bridge placement? Or is there a resource available specifically for calculating chromatic dulcimers? Also for those of you with experience are there any specific issues I might encounter building chromatic that I did not encounter with diatonics that I should be aware of? Thanks for your time! Stay well!

-Nate